The demand for titanium is continuously increasing not only in the aircraft market, but also in general industrial products and livelihood products, and it appears that the global demand for titanium will exceed the production of titanium.
Thus, it appears that the demand for titanium in the global market is continuously increasing, but the foundation of the titanium recycling market is weak.
In recent years, requirements for titanium recycling have been proposed, and technology for refining metal scraps or sponge for recycling purposes has received attention.
However, in the prior art, there were problems in that processes for smelting, refining and melting titanium require advanced technology and much energy due to the high melting point and high chemical activity of titanium and in that the difficult processability and high production cost of titanium pose an obstacle to the general use of titanium.
Meanwhile, current methods for melting titanium scraps include a vacuum arc remelting (VAR) method, an electron beam melting (EBM) method, a plasma arc melting (PAM) method, etc., which are used to melt titanium sponge extracted from titanium ore. When such methods are used to recycle titanium scraps, there is a problem in that the application of such methods to the titanium recycling market is difficult, because equipment corresponding to fixed costs is expensive.
In addition, good-quality titanium scraps can be produced into ingots by remelting. However, it is difficult to obtain high-purity titanium from titanium scraps having a high content of impurities (oxygen, nitrogen, etc.), which are generated mainly in the processing of sheets, wire rods or the like, because a separate process for refining such titanium scraps does not exist.